Falling For Purity

chapter 3

Lexy did his form four exams. Before results were out, he was haunted by series of nightmares. That stint, his dad was wheezing away, battling asthma.

Lexy was  disturbed, he felt there was a secret that had been well cultivated and sealed in the family secret drawer. There were many stories circulating in the village. It was awfully wrenching his inside.

Stories of him as a long lost kid, thriving in foreign ground. Him crusted between two rocks, bearing ancient secret. A huge secret, that had sharp claws, gnawed their conscience in a prickling smother.

Stories of him, with his roots extricated, and scattered to dry and bleed in the palm of rocks.

Stories of him born to a family of a masterclass brush master. A happy family. A family that never came to be. A couple, that lived in a plush mansion, a mansion that ended bowing down to sinister fate. Fate that made it appear like a ghost parlor.

They say his real dad, was a brush expert , from Tororo Uganda. With artistic hands blending in crafty mind.

The wind says the man had a dream. A simple dream. To have a beautiful house. And a happy family, that could transform the beautiful house into a lively home.

His dream lived with him in his heart. It occupied a special place in his memory. It was with him, inside his straw hat, as he splashed array of colors on the wall. To create a stirring piece.

Stories help to tell other stories. One story builds another. Feeding flesh into it. Softening and pressing it's edges. Burning down the unnecessary parts. Stringing together characters and events.

And it's true, stories don't die , they just change form and flavor. They take different angles , they get refined with time.

Stories may fade , but they will never escape the memories of great storytellers of our time.

We all fall in love with with good stories. A good story is not necessarily the one that ends in a pretty stage, where a sexy girl blows away a dreamy guy using a spell of the kiss.

A good story is the one, that drags it's listeners, through a rutted path of despair, charges and dives in with beacon of hope, then takes everyone home with the truth engulfed in an envelope of inspiration.

Lexy saw ominous clouds quickly gather in the family table. He felt the premonition . The premonition lurking in the darkness. Stalking him even on his f*******: post.

The premonition was in his pillow, when he drifted to sleep. It was taunting him. Jolting up wave of fear through his spine. It even fling his dreams tossing them into the sea of nightmares.

Then the right juncture came, it was on a Monday night, a starless night. As usual he retired to his cozy bed before ten in the pm.

He drifted to silver manger of sleep, only to be woken up by heavy pounding on the door.

" Hey Lexy, wake up!"

It was the voice of her mom, curved in in cold strained folds. Her voice drained , like she was sitting on an ice stool in Jupiter talking to someone leafing through a lifestyle magazine on Earth.

"Lexy are you listening to me? Si you wake up! Haraka please!" She went on.

" I am opening the door mum" he said as he slipped his feet into sandals.

" Is it an emergency? Is it ?" No one responded. Her mom had already left. He bolted the door and promptly a covey of owls at  Kei apple fence, flurried their wings hooting away

He hurried to his "dad's" room. His ' 'dad' was lying on his bed. His wheezing chest, jiggling with a strenuous pace.

Lexys' mom was fanning fire on the hearth. She shredded more pieces of husk into it and blew it, a blade of flame dived upwards with a crackling threat.

" Lexy my son"

" Yes daddy"

" Thank you for coming, at this odd hour"

"I had to come.."

"Fine, don't worry, I will be okay. Can you get me inhaler , it is at the drawer."

His voice is running low and iced with strange vigor. Lexy hands him the rescue inhalers.

Lexys' mom, Mrs Konki gave him theophylline bronchodilator , as their family doctor advised , to help relax muscles surrounding the airways.

Mr Konki had used that as asthma nebulizer, whenever the disease struck at home.

"Have you heard the banter going around?" Mr konkis' voice snapped Lexy out of his reverie.

" Sorry?"

"Have you heard the stories?"

Lexy bits his lower lip.

" Yes, they are on everyone's lips."

" What are they saying?"

Mr konkis' voice was laced with bitter resentment. Eyes wander in his sockets spinning with it a fierce flicker.

" They are talking a lot. I am a little confused"

"Don't be afraid, people should mind their own business"

"But dad, even the chief is talking about it in his convocations. I was at the shopping center last night, and my friends are asking me if it is true.

As I entered the butcher shop, the butcher man also wanted to know"

" Crazy! And I am ready to bring down any one who would try to hassle you." His voice with a tincture of venom.

" I will trounce their wagging tongues and smash their little head" he shifted  and sat at the edge of the bed. Blinding fury seething in him.

" Daddy, I am sorry to ask this but..."

" No need to be sorry, it's a long story but I can say this, you belong to this family by all rights. I am your father as long as you are here. Your mother and I will protect you from any form of verbal incision"

" But dad.."

" You can now go to sleep, when the right time calls, we shall discuss more "

He shift glance to his wife.

" Yeah, no doubt Father Lexy" she chirps in. Her face fevered with a taint of fear.

Lexy walked back to his room. More perplexed.

" The right time will come", he whispered to himself.

Purity who was at home for December vacation visited him most of the weekends. She had an inseparable hookup with Lexy's rural home.

It's a traditional village, with tens of huts sorrounding a water fountain. The fountain was a spectacular site. The place is cool. Brimmed with innocence.

You can't meet a guy in these place, in tatty jeans in a floral-printed shirt with a pipe on his mouth and shabbily batch of dreadlocks. Talking like "hey f*****g nigga set your ass rolling or better still rub it away with a duster"

You are a teenager and you are found smoking cigarettes, you would dance to a plaintive tune. You would be whacked until you bleed your ass away.

Smoking was evil, evil like laughing aloud to a gravida woman drowning. It was evil like farting at the altar while meditating with your parish priest.

The sparkling lush green forest, melted her heart. The well tilled land calmed her neuron. She would roll into walking spree with him, through the neatly graveled roads. Lined by crimson bushes.

Two giant hill's were set apart silently. They looked at each other with an ancient glance. Like they could chat and cackle to jokes.

A historical shrine studded at the confluence of the hills. There was a brook that artfully divided the hills. A brook where birds gulped down cool water before diving back to the kingdom of sky.

There village had a little church building. A small gathering of Catholic.

There was no bar. No hospital. No electricity. Still at the remote part of the country, you would smell December.

This month smell a party out of town. Smells a wallet of a farmer or a sting of a bee. There was that visible mark of bliss.

Children squatted on the parched ground. Playing Swahili game dubbed kibemasa.

At the last vacation when I visited the village, I received a tumultuous welcome from kids. I paid their token of gratitude with sweets.

Those kids couldn't stop Staring at my beards. Caressing my face. Staring at my fleshy nose, perhaps it looked like a ripen guava and they wanted to pluck it .

" How's is Eldorado" one would ask. One looking bold. A child of the village elder. The elder who is used to making morning rounds on the village. Making inquiries here and there. If the roof leaked. How often the dogs barked at night. If goats were safe.

" Eldorado is awesome" I would reply. They had continued with sultry empty glances.

" What is oooh-som" another kid had asked. It's when I realized they were all wandering somewhere in troposphere.

" Awesome is like the nice feeling that tickles you up when drinking porridge and you have to shake your mug twice before you sound fully drag a long sip"

They chuckled. Lexy attended a seminar. Catholic seminar down at the village. That came after Purity and her family went to Mombasa for two weeks frolicking and sunbathing in the beach.

They often chatted via w******p. Lexy always trying to impress and make her laugh.

Lexy: hey!

Purity: what's up? Doing good?

Lexy: I am doing cool, I am just thinking about you.

Purity: I am doing awesome.

Lexy: I am badly missing you.

Purity: missing your too, yearning for your tender electric touch my lovilee.

Lexy: can you give me three minutes? I want to like make you laugh.

Purity: the stage is yours.

Lexy: damn! Father Kris is here for evening mass. You Know what? He is donned in a black robe. I feel like asking him if he has watched Black Panther. If he listens to some Ed Sheeran's songs after meditation. Or if he thinks Ugandan chicks are the most curvaceous in the world. Does he believe in the phrase, "hips don't lie?" He is now making the sign of cross, I will text you later, love you.

Purity: love you too and have a lovely lively mass.

The youth seminar was indeed a cool one. They woke up at five in the morning, not in preparation for a lifetime ride in a dream liner to Bond , Germany. They woke up to pray.

Pray for the dwindling economy. Pray for the country to be fecund and produce in abundance.

Politely asked God to sent a ball of fire from heaven, to consume all the corrupt individuals in the government. Malicious souls milking a dry dying cow. A savage-looking cow hapless as his closest friend is a tick.

They prayed for the ones relegated into the flip side of society. Orphans differently able-groups and little children of Yemen.

Lexy secretly asked his private God to keep safe Christmas chicken that would date wrathful grandfather's stone-sharpened pocket knife.

He whispered gently to his God. Who was chilling at the altar. He wanted God to silence his demons. His mighty God who doesn't use penicillin to silence damn demons.

He was fascinated by sister Florida. A brassy curvaceous sister. She told him how she felt happy serving the family of Catholics. She used to be an altar girl back in the days of her youth.

As they talked at the church square one evening, he got to learn why sisters never served mass. He listened to her, the way a kid listen to his dad trying to explain why he didn't bought bread in town.

Like " Sleepy, you see when I was in town. There was an earthquake. Our favorite bakery sunk into the bowels of earth. It was a painful site. I tell you my dear Sleepy, I really cried"

The little Sleepy would ask his dad, " let's take a minute of silence.."

" Yes we have to remember workers ...." Sleepy cuts him off.

"No daddy, we are honoring thousands loaves rotting underground" his dad fainted.

Lexy learned sister Florida liked a certain color, Lavender. Until then Lexy thought lavender was a name of Chinese melamine plates.

Then he was tempted to ask sister Florida, what color of dress she wears on Valentine's. What she did when she wasn't meditating. If she was on i********:. How she handled a discreet social life.